My best friend from grade school reminded me one day that I had been manufacturing supplements in my parent’s kitchen since 1983. In a way, he was right. I used to buy the only protein available in those days which tasted absolutely disgusting. I’m talking the type of protein that was impossible to mix with a spoon and would clump together like flour. Even though I found a way to prevent the clumping by slowly adding it to milk in a blender, it would still taste disgusting. In order to combat the horrible taste, I would add sugar free extracts (vanilla, chocolate and maple) found in the grocery store baking aisle. I would sweeten the mixture with saccharine. Eventually, bodybuilders much older than me got word of my concoctions and would drop by my house for their own special brew. As a fourteen year old kid, this was an absolute thrill to have the guys I admired in the gym take interest in my nutrition regimen. In return for free protein shakes, I’d bother them with a million and one questions about bodybuilding which they were happy to oblige.

After seeing Durk Pearson on the Merv Griffin Show, I ran out and bought his best-selling book “Life Extension” and started learning about nutrition and specific diets and amino acids that could support muscle growth and fat burning. My new found interest led me to study Applied Exercise Science at Springfield College in Massachusetts. Throughout college, I continued bodybuilding and my dorm room was one of a kind. It became a mini kitchen of sorts where I prepped all my meals (since I had sold my meal plan). With my electric hotplate, a food scale, and every nutritional supplement under the sun, I had all I needed. I even purchased a hand held encapsulator which allowed me to do two things: put the powdered amino acid arginine into capsules for my own consumption and produce more to sell to other bodybuilders. Arginine is a strong inducer of growth hormone and I was using huge amounts of it every day which was expensive to buy off the shelf. I couldn’t stomach the powder I ordered from the pharmaceutical house because the taste was unbelievably harsh. I’d often puke as I chugged it down. By making my own capsules, I was not only able to get around the taste, but the extra capsules I’d sell to other bodybuilders allowed me to buy more ingredients to make more kinds of supplements.

I experimented with all sorts of combinations. In college, I use to mix powdered caffeine anhydrous with powdered chili peppers- a true home-brew fat burner. People who tried it sometimes complained that the chilies would burn their gut, but the product was actually quite effective. My grade school friend who ended up in the same dorm as me at Springfield actually lost 40 pounds using that combo. It turned out however, that his abnormal results were from the chili’s aggravating his ulcer making him unable to eat as normal.

After graduating college, I worked for three different supplement companies. Each of them, during my employment stint, was at the time, the “leader” in the industry. Truth be told, one of them was truly exceptional. The remaining two were decent with no products worthy of writing home about. They all had their advertising down packed. However, from a purest point of view, let’s just say they were average and leave it at that.

During my employment at these companies, I always felt I could do better and would someday. I continued to mix my own supplements for myself and other bodybuilders. I would order the purest raw ingredients, usually different amino acids and herbs. By this time, I had moved from a hand held encapsulator to a motorized one. I’d crush the ingredients into powder and have more than enough for myself and others. When bodybuilders I coached would ask me for advice on supplementation, I would often have them use whatever I was making at the time; a growth hormone releaser or a fat burner were always on tap. With fat burners, I was always tinkering -adding new things and getting rid of some ingredients. I was constantly reformulating ingredients to try to make my home brews a little more effective. I knew I was onto something when my athletes progress would accelerate.

In 2001, my life changed a whole lot. I was feeling really ill thru 2000 and had visited a couple of doctors seeking medical help. The constant feeling of being really run down and beat up was puzzling me. No previous tests could tell me what was wrong until a mole on my side became discolored. The mole was the piece of the puzzle that pointed my doctor to the source of my pains. In early 2001, I was diagnosed with stage 3 malignant melanoma. Seventy percent of people with stage 3 melanoma are no longer around in 5 years. Naturally, I put bodybuilding on hold and quit training. I, unfortunately, quit eating right and went into survival mode. After treatment folks I knew and trusted in bodybuilding would encourage me to get back into training. Not only would I resist, I was so damn weak, I would often think the person telling me to get back into the gym was simply out of his mind. I was way too worn down from the cancer and treatment. The worry and anxiety that comes with it all also prevented me from even entertaining eating let alone dieting and training.

One day, I finally had had enough. Weak, flimsy and tired, I went into my home gym and did 2 sets of curls with 50 pounds and could not move my arms for 4 days after! Four days later, I did 3 sets of bench presses with 100 pounds. For 3 more days, it felt like I had radioactive fallout oozing on my pecs. I was that darn sore. Around this same time, I had the opportunity to go to work for one of the top supplement companies in the world. I used their products, and thought they worked well enough to get me started. They helped my body recover and grow and over a 6 month period, combined with radically improved eating habits, I was able to add 15 pounds of muscle and drop 15 pounds of body fat. Overall, I felt so much better. Actually, I didn’t recognize how bad I was really feeling post cancer until I was finally able to feel better. I guess I had gotten used to feeling downright rotten. With training, better eating and a new variety of supplements, I felt like a new person-with jitters from my fat burner.

My interest in developing a supplement line was still nagging at me. With the supplement regime, I couldn’t help but think “I can do better than this.” That is, I felt I could offer even more effective supplements than my new employer especially if I had the opportunity to formulate and develop them from scratch. I had hoped that my relationship with the company would lead to my developing a high-grade product line for competitive athletes. However, for reasons unknown to me, things did not turn out that way and the relationship with the company ended.

Fortunately, having survived cancer had made me an internal optimist. So, when I got a call from one of the big wigs at the company and was told, “we are headed in another direction,” it took me less than 3 minutes to make the sincere decision that I was going to take my hand pressed encapsulator and home brew supplements to a whole new level. I called a few friends from college who had access to the highest quality herbs and extracts in the USA and perfected my tried and true fat burner, Nordrenalean HSL. This was my first product which I am quite proud of because it embodies my commitment to pure, quality supplements that don’t skimp on nutrients by minimizing the more effective ingredients to maximize profit. The cost in developing this and other products did not take precedence to effectiveness. You won’t catch us putting water in the ketchup bottle.